Documentary? Artwork? Puzzle? Prank? Social commentary? This film by the British graffiti artist known as Banksy is, indeed, all of the above.

Film ReviewMay 14, 2010, by Marjorie Baumgarten

"...Banksy’s work has always been marked by its politicized edge, one that mocks, criticizes, and inverts the status quo. With Exit Through the Gift Shop, the outlaw street artist makes a stunning debut into the world of film..."

"...Where “Bullet the Blue Sky” once rained down American imperialism on the southern half of the continent in an apocalyptic Hendrix guitar mangle, three decades later Joshua Tree closers “Exit” and “Mothers of the Disappeared” now represent global massacre and refugee-ism with a destructive verve, volume, and ultimately meditative unease. Bono’s past proselytizing keeps in check currently with a football field-sized screen doing most of the work in words and images..."

"...Worse: He's left the city, the entire state. He's moved to that City of Angels on the far west coast of this grayed nation of ours.
I mean, he's gone to L.A.
Josh Meyer, after more than a decade of creative fomenting and unforgettable theatrical production in partnership with his friend (and fellow University of Kansas alum) Matt Hislope, is no longer among us in this land of weed and breakfast tacos.
But why has he gone? To seek his fortune?
To seek romance, more like.
The re-kindling of romance, to be precise.
And to exercise a few times a week with Richard Simmons.
NB: Those last two items are true but unrelated.
So I figured a sort of exit interview was required here..."

"...Accepting the new position and leaving Austin wasn't an easy decision, Hammond told the Chronicle in an exit interview at the Austin Animal Center. With the Levander Loop campus currently undergoing $5.9 million in renovations to expand kennel space, add pet adoption rooms, and improve drainage, "I feel like I'm leaving a perfect life." But her parents in Chicago and her in-laws in Michigan need support..."

"...He passed away this weekend.” So began the email this morning from Zeke Martinez. Another death to process, this one a bit easier on my heart, still bleeding from so many exit wounds this year...."

"...Ramont was honored with a Critics Table Award for his work on the two
CCP productions. The dramatic nature of Ramont's exit owed more to private
considerations than public, to feelings within the director himself...."

"...Jim Caligiuri’s work for the Chronicle laid a hard and fast foundation for the last 20 years of this periodical’s dancing about architecture (“writing about music is like dancing about architecture,” a musician once mused). Exiting is not only a valued storyteller and marker of history and events, but a comrade in arms...."

In her latest project, singer Petula Clark sets aside her image as chirpy pop starlet to play mad screen diva Norma Desmond in the musical version of Sunset Blvd. Clark tells Stephen MacMillan Moser how she came by this radical departure in roles.

Canadian wunderkind Xavier Dolan creates a volatile drama about a violently hyperactive teen, his strong-willed mother, and the nice woman who lives across the street.

Film ReviewFebruary 6, 2015, by Marjorie Baumgarten

"...The screen ratio is 1:1, which is a perfect square, although it gives the illusion of the image looking longer than it is wide. (Unless you know this going in, it’s likely you’ll miss a few minutes of the opening reels while you exit the theatre to advise the management to adjust the lens.) At a couple points when the characters experience happiness, the screen ration suddenly pops out into widescreen..."

"...The prisoners are kept in window-encased cages with constant video monitoring, amid this open and openly brutal environment. Breslin is supposed to have a contact at the prison and an exit code to use if he needs to leave..."

Drafthouse Films is distributing this Japanese S&M mindwarp. You could do far worse for midnight-date movie fare.

Film ReviewJanuary 23, 2015, by Marc Savlov

"...Nao Ohmori (Ichi the Killer himself) plays seemingly meek department-store salesman and family man Takafumi Katayama, who enrolls in a yearlong S&M-by-surprise deal with no exit clause. Although he’s randomly kicked, punched, spat upon, and generally battered about like a rag-doll salaryman, Takafumi’s physical and spiritual joy-overload radiates, literally, from his face at every bruising turn..."

"...It’s just before I-35’s exit 201 that you see your first billboard: black, and grey, and “Go Spurs Go.” The support sits right before the San Marcos outlets and the Ingram Readymix Plant, the first sign that you’re in Spurs country, the first sign that there was actually going to be a basketball game in San Antonio last night...."

There's little about this return trip to Middle-earth that feels "unexpected" or fresh.

Film ReviewDecember 14, 2012, by Marjorie Baumgarten

"...To sum it up, there is little that is unexpected in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Rather than an epic continuation of Jackson’s Middle-earth obsession, the film seems more like the work of a man driving around a multilevel parking garage without being able to find the exit...."

Alison Klayman's doc is as much a rallying cry for freedom of expression as it is a portrait in progress of an artist whose career is ongoing.

Film ReviewAugust 10, 2012, by Marjorie Baumgarten

"...Fomenting dissent, 140 characters at a time, came easily to an artist known for such succinct images as the superimposition of his middle finger over a shot of Tiananmen Square. Ai’s body has suffered blows by police officials, he’s been denied exit visas, and he witnessed the government demolition of his newly built studio in 2011..."

This epic starring Andy Garcia about Mexico’s anticlerical Cristero War of the late 1920s is a plodding and poorly plotted tale.

Film ReviewJune 1, 2012, by Marjorie Baumgarten

"...Morrow’s attempt to negotiate peace in the region is fueled by oil interests rather than democratic ideals, and his mission seems eminently relatable to the present day. You’ll be forgiven (on earth if not in heaven) should you find yourself humming “Onward, Christian Soldiers” as you exit the theatre...."

Paris, from the French director of When the Cat's Away, follows a half-dozen-plus Parisians and their interconnectedness.

Film ReviewOctober 9, 2009, by Kimberley Jones

"...There are no great revelations or titillations in the characters' interconnectedness, but I don't think that was ever Klapisch's point. Actually, his point is fairly obvious – and facile – delivered more than once from the mouth of the dying Pierre, who scolds those with fully functional hearts about their petty complaints, and hammered home in the film's exit music, Wax Tailor's trip-hop remix, "Seize the Day." For all the inelegance of the method of the message's delivery, there is nothing inelegant about Klapisch's aesthetic vision – the man has a stylish eye – or the actors' performances..."

Film version of the popular video game stars Mark Wahlberg … unfortunately.

Film ReviewOctober 24, 2008, by Marc Savlov

"...Trouble is, no matter how much craft Thorne poured into this particular script and no matter how polished the noirish, literate dialogue may be, the end result comes out of the mouth of Wahlberg. That's not good, because the actor bites down hard on the words before they barely have time to exit his mouth..."

A sweet, old-fashioned kind of picture content to burrow into the quiet spaces, where boring, ordinary adults live and fitfully try to love again. Oh, and occasionally talk to dead people.

Film ReviewSeptember 19, 2008, by Kimberley Jones

"...It’s sweet and old-fashioned, a little bit hokey, its pacing a little bit pokey. But by the time this imperfect little film wends its way to one of the most winning exit lines I’ve heard in a long time, it’s turned into something, well, perfectly lovely...."

Horror overtakes a woman on level P2 of a parking garage, and the film's suspense
plays on our collective unease with being alone, at night, surrounded by concrete and rebar.

Film ReviewNovember 16, 2007, by Marc Savlov

"...Set entirely within the confines of a drab, generic parking garage (and occasionally in the equally dull, utterly random office tower above), it's a slow, steady, occasionally gripping yarn that builds tension via the most mundane ordeals of the workaday world. Angela, whose car won't start despite an early assist from Thomas, just wants to go home, but every conceivable exit is a dead end..."

This animated Hungarian feature is equal parts South Park and Magyar-inflected hip-hop, and an altogether smart, urban riff on Romeo and Juliet.

Film ReviewNovember 16, 2007, by Marc Savlov

"...Directed by: Áron Gauder. There's so much going on in this animated Hungarian feature that if you don't have attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder going in, you may well develop it by the time you exit the theatre, and I mean that as a compliment..."

"...Cottonfields and Crossroads is crammed to bursting with reminiscences of the family’s ill-fated sojourn to Nashville, where they were laughed at by the clueless country-music cognescenti; the hard-charging drive that was instilled in the trio by Ringo Sr.; and assorted incidences of discrimination before their eventual triumph. This is a document of persistence, passion, and some of the finest rock & roll since Stevie Ray Vaughan’s untimely exit...."

Gretchen Mol dazzles as the titular pinup girl, but the film raises many more questions about the enigmatic icon than it answers.

Film ReviewApril 21, 2006, by Marc Savlov

"...Mol inhabits the role of Page like a second skin, and while she's not as curvy as the real thing, she's got the sassy, wide-eyed innocence down pat. Moving from Tennessee to New York to pursue a vague dream of acting, Page's life (before her 1957 rebirth as a devout evangelical Christian, anyway) is mapped out by Harron in a studious narrative line, moving from her "discovery" by the Brooklynese brother-and-sister photography team of Irving and Paula Klaw (Bauer and Taylor) to her eventual pairing with Floridian shutterbug Bunny Yeager and from there to Kefauver's Subcommittee and her eventual exit from the pinup world..."

A contemporary gangster film that both looks and feels like a Britnoir classic filtered through the Jam’s bang-on sense of style, Layer Cake takes a realistic approach to Britain’s criminal underclass.

Film ReviewJune 3, 2005, by Marc Savlov

"...Craig plays Layer Cake’s unnamed protagonist, a charmingly smooth drug runner who has decided to opt out of what he quite accurately views as an increasingly hazardous profession. As befits a character who belongs to one of the lower layers of this particular confection, his planned exit runs into opposition from all corners, including top dog Eddie Temple (a perfectly sinister Gambon), middleman pal Gene (Meaney), and violence-prone partner Monty (Harris)..."

Life during wartime is always difficult, but never more so than when you're in love as this Czech movie demonstrates.

Film ReviewNovember 5, 2004, by Marc Savlov

"...Afterward, he rushes to the operating room to save the life of the peasant villager Joza (Cserhalmi), who’s suffered a near-deadly sawmill accident. Eliska is pressed into donating blood for the injured and unconscious man, but he exits her mind as quickly as her corpuscles enter his bloodstream..."

Jeepers Creepers may not be the most technically accomplished horror film I've seen -- some of the night sequences, of which there are many, have a serious film-grain problem --...

Film ReviewAugust 31, 2001, by Marc Savlov

"...Starring: Jon Beshara, Eileen Brennan, Patricia Belcher, Jonathan Breck, Justin Long and Gina Philips. Jeepers Creepers may not be the most technically accomplished horror film I've seen -- some of the night sequences, of which there are many, have a serious film-grain problem -- but what it lacks in studio-level finesse it more than makes up for with unrelenting imagination and a creepily visceral punch that's hard to shake even after you exit the theatre's darkness for the daylight outside..."

Gun shy is right: This ensemble comedy-drama from first-time director/writer Blakeney is about as interesting as a mayo sandwich on day-old Wonder Bread. It's a downright odd hybrid of feel-good...

Film ReviewApril 21, 2000, by Marc Savlov

"...Gun shy is right: This ensemble comedy-drama from first-time director/writer Blakeney is about as interesting as a mayo sandwich on day-old Wonder Bread. It's a downright odd hybrid of feel-good comedics and mobster clichés that leaves you scratching your head as you exit the theatre: What were they thinking? Apparently they were thinking that the world is in dire need of another film revolving around the precarious mental states of gun-wielding testosterone cases (this in the wake of Analyze This, The Sopranos, et al)..."

So it's a quarter to midnight and you're alone in your sepulchral law office, grimly making up the billable-hours deficit you incurred during your biennial vacation. And then it hits...

Film ReviewOctober 29, 1999, by Russell Smith

"...And then it hits you: God! What you wouldn't give to be back in college again! Rocking and debauching until 4am; wooing sexy French exchange students with made-up Derrida quotes; taking the film courses you were sure would set you on the path to becoming the next Scorsese … Well, before you go overboard in idealizing your collegiate days, make time for the bittersweet reality check provided by this trenchantly entertaining documentary. Now & Then is in essence a series of exit interviews with 10 Stanford University seniors who were previously the subjects of Geller and Goldfine's 1994 film, Frosh..."

Here's the set-up: Bagman and driver Val and Porter (Henry, Gibson) steal $140,000 from an Asian syndicate, and then Val double-crosses Porter, steals his cut, and runs off with his...

Film ReviewFebruary 5, 1999, by Marc Savlov

"...Production designer Richard Hoover deserves particular praise for creating the look and feel of a giant, post-industrialized hellhole for Porter to chase around in. It's not exactly the Detroit of Robocop or Carpenter's New York escape, but Payback's milieu is as formidable a character as anyone sporting an exit wound onscreen..."

All the advance signs looked discouraging, but I still kept thinking: How bad could a comedy starring Eddie Murphy and Jeff Goldblum really be? Well, let's put it this way...

Film ReviewOctober 9, 1998, by Marjorie Baumgarten

"...Murphy underplays his comic mannerisms, as if in deference to the belief that he is indeed playing a holy man. Goldblum, as is usual, conveys a thinking man's twitchiness but you suspect his eyes are just darting about madly in search of the exit signs..."

Such an austere and militaristic-sounding title as this one belies the affectionate, warm glow that blankets the family memoir of A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries. This latest Ismael Merchant-James Ivory...

Film ReviewOctober 2, 1998, by Marjorie Baumgarten

"...One way of looking at this, I suppose, is with gratefulness for the film's wealth of detail. But, to my mind, it is a maddening melange of autobiographical threads that lead in dozens of directions, like a maze with no exit..."